Green Day, Guns N’ Roses, Against Me Members + More Sign Open Letter to President Obama Concerning Standing Rock Protest

One of the bigger items in the news of late has concerned the peaceful protest by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe members protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline with police using what is viewed as aggressive tactics hoping to shut them down. More and more attention has been drawn toward the protest of late with musicians and celebrities getting involved. The latest act to bring attention to the protest is an open letter penned by British vocalist Kate Nash and co-signed by a wealth of musicians across multiple genres asking President Obama, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Justice to intervene.

Nash told Rolling Stone she was inspired to write the letter and reach out to others in the music community after participating in a letter-banking event. "It feels hopeful," she says. "We can draw a different audience to the subject, spread much needed awareness and let the people of Standing Rock know that the music community sees and hears them and that we stand with them."

The Army Corps of Engineers have set a Dec. 5 deadline for protestors to decamp from the site, with those remaining expected to be charged with trespassing and facing prosecution. In recent weeks, the peaceful protestors have reportedly been threatened with the use of water cannons, rubber bullets and concussion grenades.

Lamb of God's Randy Blythe recently visited the Standing Rock protestors and wrote a detailed account of his experience that can be read here. In it, he detailed that police officers were armed with “rifles, grenade launchers, safety-orange shotguns, large pepper-spray canisters resembling fire extinguishers and a few water hoses.” To combat the possibility of the weapons being used, protestors covered their hands with rubber gloves to combat the pepper spray and mixed liquids to help alleviate the potential usage of tear gas.

“What is happening at Standing Rock is a reaction to the continued and systematic oppression of the indigenous people of our land. I am amazed at the level of restraint and commitment to nonviolence the overwhelming majority of these people have continued to display in such large numbers and can only pray that everything remains as peaceful as possible,” stated Blythe.

He then put this entire scene in a different context, proposing, “If the events occurring there were to happen in a major American city instead of way out on the edge of an isolated Indian reservation, there would be massive riots and there is no question about that in my mind.”

“There are other questions, though; hard questions that we need to start asking ourselves, all of us,” Blythe said. “The most important one is this: Are we ready to stop screwing around and decide whether or not we are going to leave a world where human beings can survive in the future?”